Conscious Creators — Make A Life Through Your Art Without Selling Your Soul

"I was like, well, Buffet closes deals in like three weeks. And people like selling to him because he's nice and straightforward and he doesn't mess up their business. And so we just copied Buffett and started doing the exact same thing. And now we're up to about 30 wholly-owned businesses." — Andrew Wilkinson

In today's episode, we're speaking with Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson), co-founder of Tiny. Here are some of the main topics we discuss:

• how Andrew reverse engineered Berkshire Hathaway to build Tiny
• how he started out making $60,000 from his basement
• how he runs a company with $1B+ in enterprise value with 5 decisions a day
• how to make an acquisition profitable using simple frameworks
• why Joe Rogan got ripped off by Spotify
• his inspiration behind starting the Tiny Foundation

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and improve your business and life.

Like this show? Support us by following the show, leaving a review here and helping us spread the word by sharing the pod with one (or three) friends: https://refer.fm/creators

Do you want to learn how to make a living as a creator? Check out the CreatorsMBA where we show you how to get paid to create online: http://www.creatorsmba.com

Follow our host, Sachit Gupta, and get it touch if you have any questions or ideas related to the show: Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Please enjoy today's episode and thank you for listening!

• Sachit

Show Notes

• 03:06 The evolution of an inspiring technology entrepreneur and the inspiration behind it
• 12:56 The art of delegating & being a good manager
• 15:33 The secret behind successful entrepreneurship and the factors it depends on Or Fish where the fish are
• 21:28 Identifying opportunities, drawing a great team, and the structure and methods of buying and maintaining a successful business
• 24:38 The incremental value and making the most from best practice
• 26:35 The importance of ethics vs. skills, and the M & A approach Andrew’s way
• 34:33 The idea behind Mailman and how his hobbies always transform into growing businesses
• 38:30 Following you natural inclination without compromising your freedom, and with maintaining your balance
• 42:59 The autonomy as a pillar of his ventures, and incorporated as a way of work for the team
• 49:47 Recommendations from a successful entrepreneur to podcasters
• 56:08 An insight on the types of personalities: the innovator, the founder, the scaler, and the operations person
• 58:13 Tools & Tactics on personal productivity
• 60:56 The philanthropic aspects of Andrew’s entrepreneurship
• 68:53 The happiness effect according to Andrew

Tweetable Quotes

"I was like, well, Buffet closes deals in like three weeks. And people like selling to him because he's nice and straightforward and he doesn't mess up their business. And so we just copied Buffett and started doing the exact same thing. And now we're up to about 30 wholly-owned businesses." — Andrew Wilkinson

"One of the interesting things about being a CEO for us is that we basically do not intervene in any way unless asked to so, unless the CEO wants to go spend a ton of money or they want our feedback on something, we don't talk to them." — Andrew Wilkinson

"If you bring in somebody (CEO) that the team rejects, it's a complete failure, it doesn't matter if they're incredibly smart and they have a great strategy." — Andrew Wilkinson

About Our Guest

Andrew Wilkinson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada and developed an early interest in computers and technology at a young age. In 2001 he took over a tech news site called MacTeens.com. While managing this site, Wilkinson started to gain significant traffic to his site by covering tech news and reviewing tech products. After graduating high school, his tenure in college was short-lived and he decided to drop out after a few months. He started to become a freelance designer and this led to him starting MetaLab.

In 2006, Wilkinson started a design agency called MetaLab. In a short period of time, MetaLab became a market leader for Silicon Valley companies that were looking for marketing and web design services. Some of the notable companies that were MetaLab clients included startups like Slack, Coinbase, Pinterest and Shopify as well as Fortune 500 companies like Apple, Google, Walmart, and Facebook. Today, MetaLab has launched over 205 products for clients and 3 of those products became billion-dollar businesses.

Unsure of what to do with the proceeds, Wilkinson started reading about investing and quickly learned about Warren Buffett. This led to Wilkinson transitioning from a business operator role to investing full-time.

After delegating his operating business to CEOs, Wilkinson founded Tiny with his long-time business partner, Chris Sparling. Tiny began buying profitable internet businesses and quickly started growing their portfolio due to their unique value propositions. Tiny would purchase businesses from founders in a swift, seamless manner by providing full or partial cash outs for founders in addition to getting deals done in less than 30 days. Additionally, Tiny would promise to not make any significant culture changes and hold the companies long-term. This led to significant growth in Tiny’s portfolio and now there are over 25 businesses under the Tiny umbrella. Notable companies in Tiny’s portfolio include Dribbble, MetaLab, PixelUnion, Creative Market and more.

In June 2020, Wilkinson announced the launch of the Tiny Foundation. Wilkinson has noted interest in charitable areas such as science, journalism and child protection services.

“If you have someone who’s 50+ who’s been doing this longer than the person saying the [pipeline] excuse, but they still are not in a leadership role, then you have to understand that it’s not the pipeline, it’s the pipe. It’s the problem itself, it’s the institution itself.” – Arlan Hamilton

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has now raised more than $10 million and invested in more than 130 startup companies led by underestimated founders. In 2018 Arlan co-founded Backstage Studio which launched four accelerator programs for underestimated founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and London. Arlan was featured on the cover of Fast Company magazine in October 2018 as the first Black woman non-celebrity to do so, and her new book "It's About Damn Time" was released on Penguin Random House's business imprint Currency in May 2020.

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with Backstage Capital founder and author of It’s About Damn Time, Arlan Hamilton. Arlan shares her investing philosophy, lessons she’s learned from mentors, and more. She and Sachit discuss barriers to underrepresented—or, as Arlan prefers to say, underestimated—founders finding funding, as well as her background in the music industry. Plus, find out how Arlan defines what she’s looking for as an investor and hear an anecdote from SXSW.

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Quarantine during this pandemic has taken a certain amount of discipline.
• Backstage Capital had to change their vernacular to no longer say “underrepresented” but instead say “underestimated.”
• Arlan believes that anyone who says the lack of diversity in venture capital is simply a “pipeline problem” is lying to themselves or lying to you.
• There are many roles you can take in elevating underestimated groups; if you aren’t a founder, you can be an employee.
• Once at SXSW, Arlan was asked to be on a panel of judges for a diversity demo, and was the only Black woman represented.
• Arlan makes a distinction between privilege and entitlement; privilege is not bad, but entitlement is, because it is an active choice to behave in an entitled way.
• One of the highest priorities for Backstage Capital was making an inclusive and welcoming application process for their accelerator.
• Applicants have told Arlan there was dignity in the application process, from being made to understand the odds from the start and even getting communications when they are not selected.
• Her process has been to put up no barriers to the application process, unlike a cookie-cutter investor who puts up false barriers for who you need to know to get your company seen in the first place.
• Arlan has been curious her entire life and has always loved to ask questions and learn from people different from her and in different industries from her.
• Arlan’s background in being a tour manager in music has prepared her for her current job because she’s become a master at juggling dozens of different personalities, work styles, needs, and emotions at once.
• Arlan isn’t sure what her talent is aside from recognizing talent, and perhaps in connecting people.
• As an example, Arlan recently personally donated to a group at Howard University of queer students studying dentistry. The group not only appealed to her intersectional identity, but was so specific and knew exactly what it was and what they sought to accomplish.
• She understands that someone took a chance on her when she was starting out, so she wants to do that for other people.
• One thing Arlan has learned from a mentor is how to react more slowly by observing and strategizing.
• Next, Arlan wants to work towards supporting as many others as she can, both through Backstage Capital and simply through motivation.
• Arlan hopes to influence policy using Backstage Capital as a case study.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. The lack of diversity isn’t a pipeline problem, it’s a systemic issue within our institutions.
2. It isn’t enough to say you’ll seek out underrepresented groups for something if you aren’t looking at how to make every aspect of your business inclusive and welcoming to those groups.
3. Understanding who you are is the most important first step to success.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“If you have someone who’s 50+ who’s been doing this longer than the person saying the [pipeline] excuse, but they still are not in a leadership role, then you have to understand that it’s not the pipeline, it’s the pipe. It’s the problem itself, it’s the institution itself.” –Arlan Hamilton

“We kind of get real uncreative when it’s too complex. I’m here to tell you I’ve done some real complex work and I’m still standing, so it doesn’t have to be too hard.” –Arlan Hamilton

“You’re about to listen to me talk about the differences & the disparities—you might feel attacked… I think what you may not understand is that I am not attacking you & most people aren’t. They’re simply stating what is true to them & what is a reality to them.” –Arlan Hamilton

“If I can describe what I’m looking for, it’s not interesting enough. I want someone who blows me away and changes my expectation.” –Arlan Hamilton

“I like people who are very understanding of who they are. They don’t have to be super confident, you can build that over time. But just finding out who you are is the biggest gift you can give yourself.” –Arlan Hamilton

 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — get in touch with Arlan through her website!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Backstage Capital
• It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton and Rachel L. Nelson
• Arlan’s Website
• Arlan’s Facebook
• Arlan’s Instagram
• Arlan’s Twitter
• Arlan’s Linkedin
• Uncharted Power

 

“It doesn’t really matter how big your audience is if you don’t really have anything to say. Having something to say is way more important than having a giant audience.” –Rolf Potts

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Rolf Potts is the author of four books, including the bestseller "Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel."

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with travel author Rolf Potts. The conversation takes a bit of a different form from previous episodes, discussing their individual views on creative work and podcasting. Rolf shares his philosophy about pursuing the most soulful way of working, the inherent authenticity of TikTok, and more. They also talk about how they prepare for podcast interviews, the current media landscape as compared to Old Hollywood, and the differences between radio and podcasting.

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Once you’ve gotten successful at something, you want to branch out and expand, not just continue to do the exact same thing.
• The distinction between the business side and the creative side have become far less siloed with things like podcasting.
• At what point do social media algorithms start to change your art itself?
• There’s a difference between having 5 years of experience and having 1 year of experience that you’ve repeated 5 times.
• When preparing for an interview, Sachit asks guests what they’re usually asked about so he can talk about something else, and asks them what they’re rarely asked about but wish they were.
• The entire idea of Rolf’s podcast is to talk to experts about something other than their expertise.
• Rolf’s sees his podcast as being personality-driven rather than topic-driven.
• You have to learn to think about your business expertise in a creative way.
• Rolf’s book Vagabonding is a somewhat philosophical book because he built his own travel philosophy out of desire to travel rather than travel experience that was handed to him in his upbringing.
• Rolf has always been driven to find the most soulful way of doing things and to treat everything he does as an education.
• There’s a difference between success that’s just an endless pursuit like Pac-Man and success that actually enhances your life and that you allow yourself to appreciate and enjoy.
• Our lizard brains love brief excitements and dopamine hits that come from clickbait culture, but that is not in any way connected to soulfulness.
• Authenticity and being true to your vision is what makes you successful.
• TikTok is a platform that has encouraged authenticity down to its algorithm making discoverability and the probability of going viral more equal across the board instead of favoring accounts with existing large followings.
• In Old Hollywood, consolidation was on the side of the production studios, and now in social media the consolidation is on the side of distribution with Google and Amazon Web Services.
• Social networks are reality prisons.
• People often now believe that admitting that you were wrong about one thing means you are always wrong about everything, but in reality, scientists modify their conclusions based on changing data all the time.
• Podcasting is distinct from radio because in the past, not anyone could have a radio show, but now production is available to anyone.
• The response to COVID-19 goes against all American sensibilities. Because we can’t see the virus, we can’t see the “attack,” people behave as if there’s nothing to react to.
• Podcasting represents human conversation in a way that other social networks don’t.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Expanding beyond your niche is a way to improve your work in your initial specialty.
2. Pursue soulfulness rather than success.
3. Production tools are now accessible to everyone, so figure out what you want to say and be authentic when you use them.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“It doesn’t really matter how big your audience is if you don’t really have anything to say. Having something to say is way more important than having a giant audience.” –Rolf Potts

“I’ve been on the business side because I believed my creative side wasn’t good enough for a long time… I ended up being on the business and marketing side for creators because I felt like I couldn’t be like that. So that intersection of creative and business has always driven what I’ve done.” –Sachit Gupta

“More and more, creative people are going to be expected to manage their own business, their own marketing, their own promotion. And I think just as equally, business people are going to find that their world is enhanced by being creative.” –Rolf Potts

“Something is attacking our country, yet we’re having the same old conversations. We’re trying to stick a dagger in somebody else’s argument when both of us should be listening to what’s happening.” –Rolf Potts

 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send Rolf a message through his website!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Rolf Potts’ Website
• Rolf Potts’ Instagram

“I don’t think that we’re born individualists or we’re born a member of a community, but I think all these spaces are real. They all exist for all of us.” –Yancey Strickler

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World (Viking), and the creator of Bentoism. Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. He’s spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, Web Summit, MIT, and events around the globe. He co-founded the artist resource The Creative Independent and the record label eMusic Selects. Yancey grew up in Clover Hollow, Virginia, and began his career as a music critic in New York City.

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with Kickstarter co-founder and author Yancey Strickler. They discuss how Yancey’s background as a music critic and creator influenced his work on Kickstarter, how he and his co-founders infused Kickstarter with very intentional values, why he loves sci-fi, and more. Yancey also shares information about his decision making framework, Bentoism, and how he found and developed the idea. 

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Yancey grew up on a farm in rural Virginia with no neighbors for miles around.

 

• Up until now, if you want to raise VC, you have to be in NYC or San Francisco just for the necessary relationship building.

• Yancey thinks with the recent increased interest in less urban areas, there may be a development of “flyover tech” or rural/red state tech, particularly with the increase in working remotely.
• He moved to New York on a whim, with 2 days’ notice, and got a job writing the news blurbs for radio stations.
• Yancey eventually became a music critic for The Village Voice and eventually Pitchfork.
• During this time, a friend approached him with the idea for crowdfunding and the idea for Kickstarter began.
• He and his co-founder struggled for several years as non-technical people trying to build a tech company.
• Yancey didn’t quit his job at a record label until Kickstarter had been live for several months, because he found it difficult to take the risk to abandon his job stability having come from a family with little money.
• It’s hard to know where you want to go as an organization, but it’s even harder to consistently make choices that push you closer to where you want to go.

 

 

• Yancey found himself thinking about his future and where he wants to go, and realized he could divide it into Now Me, Future Me, Now Us, and Future Us.

• He called this “Beyond Near-Term Orientation,” or BENTO, like the Japanese Bento box and the “hara hachi bu” dieting principle.
• Now, Yancey asks himself a few questions in each of these quadrants in order to guide his decision-making.
• Yancey does a weekly Bento check-in and uses it to schedule his week in a balanced, intentional way.
• During lockdown, he has used Bento check-ins to shift his mindset from a self-focus to a group focus, thinking about the new responsibility of homeschooling his 4 year old as an additive experience instead of something that takes him away from his work.
• We all have passive awareness and active awareness, and the Bento framework helps you cultivate more active awareness.

 

 

• The collectivism of the East is likely why lockdown and COVID-19 response has been more effective in those countries, and their long-termism will similarly likely lead to more effective response to climate change.

• Yancey predicts multiple false endings to this crisis.

• They never announced Kickstarter funding because it would have been discussed exclusively in the technology press, and that attention would only create competition in the space.

• Kickstarter was built for creatives, not for tech investors.
• Yancey started The Creative Independent, which is an online magazine that features a different creative professional daily.
• Yancey found a study that applied the idea of the Golden Ratio to business growth, which posited that the ideal size for a company is 50 people, and beyond that, you have to hire people to facilitate the administration of the company and the work slows down.
• After 10 years working full-time on Kickstarter as co-founder and then CEO, overseeing a massive period of growth and reorganization into a public benefit corporation, Yancey left to work on his Bentoism book.
• Yancey decided to write a book because as soon as he left Kickstarter he realized he was free to have thoughts that he didn’t have to filter through the company.
• Yancey tried out many hypothetical careers or things to do, like teaching, writing a book, etc., and would spend the day imagining himself in that role and paying attention to his physical responses to that imagined reality.
• Covering rock music influenced his work at Kickstarter by giving him an understanding of what’s “cool.”
• Yancey loves sci-fi because it always reflects back and teaches him something about the present.

 

 

• Being a conscious creator to Yancey means having intentionality, working through your vague idea and finding its meaningful expression.

 

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. We all need to balance our focus on ourselves, others, the present, and the future to lead a fulfilling life.
2. Having a framework and value system to make decisions helps you to always make progress in a consistent direction.
3. These ideas will help you to be a better and more conscious creator by giving your work an intentionality.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“There’s so many assumptions built into the language of our cultural products that presume a shared belief system that is way more excluding than people might realize.” –Yancey Strickler

“I don’t think that we’re born individualists or we’re born a member of a community, but I think all these spaces are real. They all exist for all of us.” –Yancey Strickler

“With climate change, what we’re going to see is that the Chinese and the Eastern perspective of long-termism and collectivism is going to be far more adept at creating scalable solutions to climate change than the West.” –Yancey Strickler

“In every world, I think it’s can you create value for people? Can you reach out to people with gives instead of with asks? Those are things that go a long way. Traits that go a long way are communication and critical thinking.” –Yancey Strickler

“What I love about sci-fi is that sci-fi is always about the present. It’s just creating a different reality to reveal the truth of the present. And I learn a lot from that, and it engages my mind.” –Yancey Strickler

 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send Yancey a message through his website!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Yancey Strickler’s website
• Yancey Strickler’s Instagram
• Yancey Strickler’s Twitter
• http://bentoism.org/
• The Creative Independent
• This Could Be Our Future by Yancey Strickler
• Not for Bread Alone by Konosuke Matsushita
• Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher
• Spheres of Justice by Michael Walzer
• Value in Ethics and Economics by Elizabeth Anderson
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
• The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
• Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

“The ignorance of an entrepreneur is a beautiful thing.” –Phillip Stutts

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Phillip Stutts is fighting a rare, incurable disease. Diagnosed in 2012 with the esophageal disease, Achalasia, he spent five years ignoring it. Frankly, he put his head in the sand, taking medications that did more harm than good, and waiting for the inevitable. Then he woke up and said no more. His mission today is to find a cure and pursue a life of constant growth and giving. And he’s making progress.

Phillip is also the best-selling author of Fire Them Now: The 7 Lies Digital Marketers Sell, and one of the masterminds behind the curtain of political marketing. With more than 20 years of political and marketing experience, Stutts has worked with multiple Fortune 200 companies, has over two decades of experience working on campaigns with billions of dollars in political ad spend, and contributed to 1,273 election victories, including hundreds of U.S. House campaigns, dozens of U.S. Senate campaigns, and even three U.S. Presidential victories.

He is the founder and executive chairman of Go BIG Media (a political media firm) and the founder and CEO of Win BIG Media (a corporate marketing agency). Together, these companies have won more than 42 national awards for marketing and creative content.

In addition to being represented by Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerSpeakers and a keynote speaker for one of the country’s largest privately held speakers bureaus, Keppler Speakers, Phillip has made more than 260 national media appearances including CBS, ESPN, FOX NEWS, FOX BUSINESS, MSNBC, and CNN. He has also appeared on some of the world’s most popular podcasts including Gary Vaynerchuk’s The DailyVee, The James Altucher Show, The Adam Carolla Show, The Dr. Drew Podcast, Jay Abraham’s The Ultimate Entrepreneur, Big Questions with Cal Fussman, and The Dr. Gundry Podcast.

He has been lauded as a “marketing genius” by FOX BUSINESS, “the political guru” by ESPN, and “The Michael Jordan of Political Marketing…” by Mike Dillard.

 

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with marketer Phillip Stutts. They discuss how he came to realize he was living an unconscious life, the steps he took to be more present, and the ways it has improved his quality of life since. Learn about how Phillip’s rare disease, Achalasia, has impacted him, and the psychedelic therapies he has used to come to terms with difficult things in his life. Also discover how you can use the current pandemic to your business’ advantage.

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Over the past few years, Phillip has undergone psychedelic, plant-based therapies to learn about himself.
• During a 5 hour MDMA therapy session, Phillip realized he was displaying narcissistic behaviors that he had developed over the last 35 years of his life and began the process of unlearning it.
• He felt incapable of experiencing deep feelings and wasn’t sure he had ever experienced love, and eventually realized he had been using alcohol to mask his feelings.
• His businesses weren’t growing as quickly as he wanted and knew they were capable of, and realized his companies had no culture; he was merely telling people to do things and manipulating his friends and family.
• Phillip had a habit of not acknowledging his feelings and instead channeling them into bad behavior towards other people, like yelling at customer service workers.
• He has been mentored by Keith Cunningham, and he couldn’t recommend him more highly.
• Phillip stays grounded and celebrates how far he and his companies have come by looking back at where they were a year ago instead of looking at how far they want to go.
• His attitude before was assuming that everyone around him was trying to screw him over, in both his business and his personal life; now his intention is to grow personally in order to help others.
• In 2012, Phillip was diagnosed with the incurable condition Achalasia, which means his esophagus muscles stop working.
• Phillip avoided researching the disease for years, until he was told he would eventually need a feeding tube and that sent him on the search for an alternative.
• He found a doctor, Steven Gundry, who could help him with a specific diet to keep his gut healthy and prolong the life of his esophagus.
• With no money behind research of this disease, Phillip published an article about his condition and worked with a physician at Johns Hopkins to assemble a research team and petition the FDA for a compassionate use case of stem cells as treatment.
• One of Keith Cunningham’s techniques that Phillip uses regularly is “Thinking Time,” in which you write down a question that is bothering you and then with no technology, just pen and paper, you write for 45 minutes.
• Several of Phillip’s clients are gone as a result of COVID-19, like a timeshare company, but others realized they could position for success like an organic foods company.
• Digital advertising on Facebook and Google are now dirt cheap and not competitive.
• In marketing, it has nothing to do with what you want to talk about with your business and everything to do with what the customer wants from your business.
• The influencer marketing space is less expensive than it has ever been.
• 50% of all purchasing decisions right now are coming down to trust in a third-party validator.
• Phillip wrote an article on Medium that ended up on their front page about how to grow your business during the pandemic.
• What living a conscious life means to Phillip is being authentic, present, and vulnerable.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. If you ignore and bury your emotions, they are going to find other, destructive ways of coming out.
2. Seemingly terrible things like incurable diseases can become one of the best things to happen to you if you let it.
3. Living consciously is not only important but it’s something free that you can start to do right now.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“I understand that I’m going to have a much higher quality of life if I’m okay being in an uncertain position.” –Phillip Stutts

“If I’m to look back at where we were a year ago, I’d go oh my god, that is insane. But if I’m just to think right now in my head where I need to be, then I’m going to get depressed over that. And so I constantly say where was I a year ago?” –Phillip Stutts

“The ignorance of an entrepreneur is a beautiful thing.” –Phillip Stutts

“The disease is the best thing that ever happened to me, because it got me to realize there was a finite time in my life and I need to live it with purpose and to serve others.” –Phillip Stutts

“Being present means understanding how other people feel, listening to them, and being in their world, and being in their presence. And I think if you’re doing those three things, you’re living a conscious life.” –Phillip Stutts

 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — find Phillip on Instagram or Twitter, or send him an email!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Phillip Stutts’ Website
• Win Big Media Business Website
• Phillip Stutts’ Instagram
• Phillip Stutts’ Facebook
• Phillip Stutts’ Twitter
• Phillip Stutts’ Linkedin
• Email Phillip
• Keith Cunningham’s Website
• “Find Yourself” by Brad Paisley
• Dr. Steven Gundry

“A lot of human fulfillment comes from belonging and purpose and connection, and things that can’t be quantified or bought with money.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Vlad Magdalin is the founder and CEO of Webflow, a company that is working on empowering designers and entrepreneurs to design, build, and launch websites and applications without having to learn how to code. In a past life, he studied to become a 3D animator with dreams of working at Pixar, but happened to fall in love with the power of programming for the web midway through art school. Most days, you can find him on Twitter yelling into the cloud about how NoCode is going to change the world.

 

At home, he’s outnumbered by two unstoppable daughters and an amazing wife, who constantly remind him that there's so much more to life than growing the business bottom line.

 

In today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and CEO of Webflow, speaks with host Sachit Gupta about his experience slowly building Webflow over more than a decade. Listen to find out what was driving Vlad to stay dedicated to his idea while overcoming obstacle after obstacle. Learn how Vlad’s experience as an immigrant has impacted his worldview, how he has evolved through the long journey of launching Webflow, and more.

 

Episode Highlights: 

 

• Vlad immigrated to the US from Russia with his family when he was 9 years old.
• Vlad began learning simple graphic design techniques while helping his dad with a Russian Yellowpages business that began for the Russian immigrant community in Sacramento.
• He learned self-reliance during his teenage years, helping his parents with odd jobs.
• Vlad was never interested in the tedious, science and math driven aspects of computer science, but loved the creativity and possibilities of what you could create.
• Vlad had the idea for Webflow when he was in college, bought the domain with his father’s help, and began furiously coding.
• Webflow fell to the wayside when he got married, but after a while working at Intuit, Vlad picked the project back up.
• While at Intuit, Vlad developed an application called Brainstorm that was used internally within the company, and an executive at the company wanted him to develop it and work on it full-time as his job.
• Vlad tried a third time to develop and launch Webflow, but then his wife got pregnant.
• Very suddenly and unexpectedly, Vlad received an envelope approving his trademark for Webflow, five years after his application had been rejected, presumably because the previous trademark holder had let it expire.
• Creating more complex applications that don’t require code to build won’t work others out of a job, it will just free them up to be able to work on more interesting problems.
• The user experience is more interesting and complex than the architecture of application programming, and it is that complex problem that will probably always require human work.
• Vlad doesn’t recommend taking the risks he took because just because it worked out for him, it doesn’t work out for most of the people who try what he tried.
• It wasn’t until the first month where Webflow’s income equalled its expenses that Vlad felt they were here to stay.
• They pursued profitability earlier than most VC startups because they had such a hard time getting funding.
• Vlad hopes to always focus on the people and the team at Webflow rather than giving into purely capitalistic impulses.
• Just because someone finds value through using Webflow does not mean that anyone else who might have built an application is losing out on anything.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Having autonomy and support at his job with Intuit helped propel Vlad towards making Webflow successful.
2. Making technology more accessible does not put anyone out of a job, but actually creates more opportunity for more people.
3. The human impact of your work and the team you work with is the most important thing.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“Seeing something that can be better and realizing that it’s possible, just having that unlock in your mind, just makes it so obvious that it should be a thing.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

“Knowing how I’m doing this work and charting a path in my head for how I would create a more visual, a more natural abstraction for that same work, it just made me believe that it had to become real.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

“There was an assumption that empowering more people to create software visually will work programmers out of a job. That’s not true at all. It’s the same assumption that was made when spreadsheets were becoming a thing.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

“I was starting to see that every milestone feels less and less certain.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

“To attract the best people, to make sure that they do their best work, you have to give them autonomy, you have to give them a chance to master their crafts, and there has to be a shared sense of purpose about why that work is important.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

“A lot of human fulfillment comes from belonging and purpose and connection, and things that can’t be quantified or bought with money.” –Vlad Magdalin

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Webflow
• Vlad Magdalin Twitter
• Bret Victor’s Worrydream
• Vlad on the Twenty Minute VC with Harry Stebbings

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send Jane a message on Instagram!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

“The clearest example of transformation is growth and growth happens every day. Every day we’re moving directionally correct with incremental progress. We’re moving in a particular direction. And that feels like a good day.“ -Jerry Colonna

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Jerry Colonna is an author and the CEO, and co-founder, of Reboot.io, an executive coaching and leadership development firm whose coaches and facilitators are committed to the notion that better humans make better leaders. For nearly 20 years, he has used the knowledge gained as an investor, an executive, and a board member for more than 100 organizations to help entrepreneurs and others to lead with humanity, resilience, and equanimity. Previous to his career as a coach he was a partner with JPMorgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase. He joined JPMP from Flatiron Partners, which he launched 1996 with partner, Fred Wilson. Flatiron became one of the most successful, early-stage investment programs in the New York City area. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

During this episode of Conscious Creators, host Sachit Gupta speaks with Jerry Colonna, author, and the CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io. Jerry discusses how people are reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic and how they can navigate the new and heightened feelings that may arise. Additionally, Jerry shares his thoughts on sorting through your emotions, how to separate your self-worth from extrinsic events and motivations, and what personal inward reflection and transformation can look like. 

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Jerry is the author of Reboot, which is one of Sachit’s favorite books that he has read/listened to multiple times.
• How are you feeling and thinking about the Covid-19 pandemic?
• Jerry thinks we, as humans, tend to be distant from a conscious understanding of what is actually happening on a global basis.
• Jerry talks about the impulse to ignore and the denial that can accompany difficult situations, like we are in now.
• How can people navigate when those feelings come up? How can people deal with their heightened emotions?
• Jerry believes that people need to get to a place where they recognize that, even though we are in the middle of a pandemic, they are okay.
• Take a step back to see if you are really safe.
• Once you start discovering stories of your childhood, what do you do with them?
• You start to put it into categories and sort it out, then put it back in such a way that you know what it is.
• Jerry gives the example of a child who believes they need to achieve good grades. They end up in a place of safety, but their intrinsic sense of self has never been tested or strengthened, and the sense of self-worth is tied to extrinsic events.
• Once someone gets an awareness of that, how do they bring about transformation or change?
• Tools, such as meditation, can be very helpful. We need to be able to release ourselves from those notions on a regular basis.
• As people start to experience transformation and change, how do you help them navigate their relationships?
• Jerry does not like the idea that people identify themselves by their relationships, and believe people should look inward to see how relationships influence their sense of self.
• What does the transformation to increased sense of self look like?
• It’s a process and it’s a movement, every day there is incremental progress.
• Can you expand on “striving for lemon drops” from your book?
• Jerry explains that lemon drops is a metaphor for visiting the safety of his grandparents’ home.
• The business we experience is similar to striving for lemon drops, because it is the striving for some type of safety.
• What do you say if someone’s response is to create even more business?
• Jerry shares his own experience with increasing his business as his initial response to the pandemic lockdown.
• How do you know where the intention is coming from?
• You can tell by asking yourself questions, such as, “What was I feeling when I started this project?”
• Can you share the story about when you went to join JP Morgan? How can you tell if you do something for the validation or to answer your calling?
• Jerry wasn’t in-touch enough with his internal self to know if he was making the right decision, but quickly realized he had made the wrong decision.
• What else would you share with people as tools or guides as they are navigating what’s going on?
• Jerry speaks on how Dr. Fauci is persistent in leading the fight against Covid-19.
• As someone reads Reboot, what is the endgame or how do you measure the success?
• True personal transformation is measured by your view of yourself.
• The process is to be able to check yourself, and at the end of the day say “this was not a bad day,” more often than not.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Get to a place where you can recognize that you are safe, and you are ok, even in uncertain times.
2. The process towards looking inward and expanding your self of self is slow and incremental.
3. Instead of becoming fixated on things, relax into what is happening and accept that you have little control.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“Never in my life have I used [humanity] without hyperbole, and today when we speak about the pandemic and the economic impact as well as the emotional, existential, physiological, physical impact, we are truly talking about humanity.” -Jerry Colonna

“Right now our systems are so hijacked that everything feels like a threat, which means that most of what we are perceiving as threatening is false, thus leading to all this anxiety.”- Jerry Colonna

“One of the things that meditation helps us do is to learn to stand back from our minds and to watch our minds at work.” -Jerry Colonna

“It’s probably more helpful to start inward and say to oneself ‘well who am I independent of these relationships and how do these relationships influence my belief system about myself?’” -Jerry Colonna

“The clearest example of transformation is growth and growth happens every day. Every day we’re moving directionally correct with incremental progress. We’re moving in a particular direction. And that feels like a good day.“ -Jerry Colonna

“True personal transformation isn’t measured by how I view you, it’s how you view you.” -Jerry Colonna

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Reboot (Book)
• Jerry Colonna Instagram
• Jerry Colonna Facebook
• Jerry Colonna Twitter
• Reboot Medium
• Creators Show

 

Actions:

• Subscribe to the new show on Apple Podcast or your favorite Podcast App and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and review.
• Thank our guest and let them know your thoughts on today’s episode. Reach out to Jerry through his Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
• Head over to Creators Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect with Busy Influencers”, partner deals, and additional bonuses.

 

“You’re placing an ad on my platform in my voice, and I know my audience the best.” –Jane Ko

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Jane Ko is the blogger behind A Taste of Koko, Austin's top food and travel blog featuring the hottest restaurants and weekend getaways. A Taste of Koko has been featured in O Magazine, InStyle Magazine, OWN TV Network, and The New York Times. 

A Taste of Koko launched Shop Koko, her very own line of foodie tees that help support local non-profits in Austin and her first book, Koko's Guide To Austin."

 

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with food and travel blogger and social media influencer Jane Ko. They discuss the Austin food scene, how influencers are being impacted by the pandemic, and the insider perspective on brand deals. They also talk about how Jane’s childhood in a tiny Texas town impacted her career, self-publishing a book, and more.

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Jane introduces herself as a blogger rather than influencer because she started her blog before that term existed.
• The “free stuff” you get as an influencer isn’t actually free because it requires hours of work to leverage for content.
• Jane works 80-100 hours per week, from restaurant tastings to brand deals.
• It took Jane about 3 years before she started getting paid through brand deals, but it may take someone less time now because the market has changed.
• The main thing Jane has learned about brand deals is how much money brands have to spend.
• Her biggest frustration is brands not listening when Jane brings her own ideas and expertise to the table.
• Jane has an agent, but she still does her own first round vetting of clients who reach out directly to her.
• Jane was supposed to work with GoDaddy, which has hosted her website for 10 years, on featuring Austin businesses during SXSW, but the event was canceled due to the pandemic.
• Instead, Jane presented an idea to GoDaddy around the domain hireacreative.co, which she had been paying for but not using and saw this as an opportunity to finally  launch it to support the freelancers like her who had just lost all their income.
• Measuring KPIs for influencer marketing is almost impossible; the only metric you can track is impressions.
• Everything Jane does for local businesses is done for free and is only for the sake of supporting her community.
• Jane grew up in a small town in Texas and never believed she was going to amount to anything.
• Jane works hard to make the process as easy as possible for brands because that makes it easier for her.
• She always communicates her idea for the content fully so she doesn’t end up in the position of having to redo anything.
• Travel blogging is the most time consuming work; it isn’t a vacation.
• Jane spends time sourcing outfits for posts while traveling, planning an itinerary of locations and shots and posts.
• Jane self-published her first book last year in 5 weeks, but she had been doing research and planning for years.
• Jane was surprised at how easy it is to do brand deals and how hard it is to sell a product.
• Her goal for her book was to sell just one copy but she sold over 3,000 copies in 5 months.
• Jane believes her book had good product-market fit.
• It’s a common misconception that authors make money on book deals; almost no books make profit.
• Because Jane self-published, she’s able to brand books for companies who want to buy in bulk and give them as gifts.
• The first quarter of the year is always the slowest for influencers.
• Jane launched hireacreative.co and Hundred for Hospitality to support local businesses and freelancers in Austin in response to COVID-19.
• Hundred for Hospitality provides 100 meals a day for free for any service industry person who has been laid off by a restaurant in Austin due to COVID-19, while being able to pay the restaurant for those meals.
• Jane’s income is down 80% right now.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. There is no secret to getting brand deals other than working hard for a long period of time and waiting for the right opportunity to emerge.
2. Communication is key in brand deals to make the process as easy as possible for both parties.
3. Nothing can replace the impact of building relationships over time.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“So for brands, they’re thinking, we’re getting 2 in 1. We need exposure & we need content, which is something that we were going to pay an ad agency easily $50-100k to shoot photos, & we can get that in one blogger? So it’s a great deal for them.” –Jane Ko

“You’re placing an ad on my platform in my voice, and I know my audience the best.” –Jane Ko

“We don’t own this platform. We’re allowed to produce content on these platforms & we’re lucky enough to then be paid. So if this ends & disappears my mindset has always been well, now I can go retire & live a normal lifestyle & not work 100 hrs/wk creating content.” –Jane Ko

“I think I’m very conscious and very aware of where my brand is and where I stand in my city that I live in and what I can do for the community… I think it’s being very aware of your brand and what good you can do.” –Jane Ko

 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send Jane a message on Instagram!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Jane Ko’s Website
• Jane Ko’s Instagram
• Jane Ko’s Facebook
• Jane Ko’s Twitter
• Hundred For Hospitality 
• Hire a Creative 

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, Jesse Elder, podcast host and creator of the Mind Vitamin video series, speaks with host Sachit Gupta about living intentionally. Learn about Jesse’s theories of time piercing, the four core elements of life, the power of appreciation, and more. Jesse shares stories from being homeschooled while growing up, joining a fight club, and the profound transformation he experienced when his MMA fighting landed him in the hospital with serious injuries.

“Everything in art, everything that we have achieved in the world, comes from our basic desire to tell a story.” – Farbod Ardebili

 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

 

Farbod Ardebili was born and raised in Iran/Tehran, where he wrote and directed numerous stage-plays and started an Underground "illegal" Metal Band, which was the first to release a Persian language Metal album on the worldwide platforms of the time.

In 2013, he wrote and directed his first short Film "Ellipsis," and thanks to its international success, he became able to move to the United States.

In the last five years, he's been busy making, moving and forming friendships, and his recent Films and new projects have been supported, recognized, and awarded by organizations such as Sundance Film Institute, Festival Du Nouveau Cinema, Oaxaca FilmFest, and more.

 

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with filmmaker Farbod Ardebili. They discuss his background and the limits on creative work in Farbod’s native Iran, what brought him to the US and the unexpected culture shock he experienced, his filmmaking, and more. Find out why it was important to Farbod to have a female protagonist in the movie he filmed back home, why he believes art matters, and what it means to be a conscious creator.

 

Episode Highlights: 

• Growing up in Tehran, Iran where he wasn’t allowed to create the art he wanted to make taught him that sometimes limitations lead to the most creativity.
• The image that western media portrays of Iran only represents a very small percentage of Iranians and isn’t anything like that.
• For Farbod, he actually had reverse culture shock coming to the US, realizing that people here aren’t as open minded and welcoming as we seem in movies.
• It isn’t the financial means that Farbod sees as the biggest difference between Iran and the US, because he grew up wealthy and actually downgraded by coming to the US, but it’s the freedom.
• He grew up making films and being creative in other ways, including winning a painting contest when he was a child.
• Farbod started a band, initially playing softer rock so that they would have an easier time getting government approval, but eventually throwing caution to the wind and playing heavy metal like they wanted.
• After a while, they started to have issues and had to put the band on hold.
• To continue making music, Farbod couldn’t focus on the risk he was taking.
• He got his Bachelor’s degree in Theatre, then transitioned into film.
• There are a lot of differences in practical terms between music and film, but at their core they have a lot of similarities too; both media have tempo, rhythm, theme, and arcs.
• Farbod’s process from when he has an idea for a film to actually making it starts with an image and then you need the courage and will to follow it and make it happen.
• He couldn’t get government permission to make movies because they found out about his metal band, so he decided to make a movie without permission in the middle of the desert where nobody would bother coming after him.
• He came to the US as a film student about 5 years ago.
• Farbod wanted to make a movie about his experience but if he wasn’t able to make it as authentic as possible, in Iran, with Persian actors, it wasn’t worth doing and he couldn’t go back to Iran to risk jail.
• To make it work, Farbod directed the movie from the US while his friends filmed it separately in Iran.
• The film is about a woman singing in a metal band, which is a big deal because in Iran, women are not allowed ot sing solo in public in any genre.
• He chose to have a female protagonist because he wanted to highlight the ways that women have it worse than men in Iran.
• Sachit sees Farbod’s work as giving voice to the voiceless.
• Farbod doesn’t know what it means to make art, but he knows everything humans do comes from our desire to tell a story.
• Most stories in the world contain a sense of justice.
• To be a conscious creator, you have to have an awareness and consciousness about justice and what is right in order to tell those stories.
• We make art and tell stories in order to find the goodness in ourselves, but the worst parts of ourselves too.

 

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Iran isn’t anything like the way the media portrays it to be.
2. You can’t focus on limitations when you’re making art, or it can stifle you; at the same time, limitations can create the conditions for the most exciting creativity.
3. Everything humans do comes back to a need for storytelling in order to make sense of the vastness of the world around us.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

“The one thing that I can tell you that you really should appreciate much more is the freedom you have—freedom to speak, freedom of expression. You can tell, you can say, you can show what you want to say. That’s the biggest reward.” –Farbod Ardebili

“When I was doing it, I wasn’t thinking I’m risking my life, I’m so fucking brave. I knew it was risky, but I wasn’t focusing on that.” –Farbod Ardebili

“I had a professor there, he always used to tell me ‘Farbod, you are so lucky.’ I was like why am I so lucky? ‘You are so lucky because you have such a fucked up life.’ His point was it makes you more creative.” –Farbod Ardebili

“Everything in art, everything that we have achieved in the world, comes from our basic desire to tell a story.” –Farbod Ardebili

“When you tell a story you have to be the good person, in some sense. You have to be conscious to be able to make a judgment that people can connect to.” –Farbod Ardebili

 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — find Farbod on Instagram and say hello!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Farbod Ardebili’s website
• Farbod Ardebili’s Instagram
• Farbod Ardebili’s YouTube